Day 76 Battle Harbour and Red Bay 3rd July 2015
By Mel
I woke feeling hideous, the cold I had ignored for a couple of days did not appreciate late night partying. Decided to skip brekky and just stagger to the boat. Chris came back with a container of porridge the lovely Chef Myrna had organised.
We were both sad to leave, reluctant to leave. Leaving the harbour in the mist echoed our feelings:
Daphne and Nelson accompanied us on the boat so more stories were shared on the crossing. Daphne told of her family including her grandmother who had lived all her life on a small island adjacent to Battle Harbour and given birth to and raised her children on the island.
Daphne along with other families had been part of the resettlement program and moved onto the mainland at Mary’s Harbour when she was a child but family retained their connections with Battle Harbour.
I stayed below most of the trip – attempting sensible behaviour – until the shout “Whales ahead’ A close and impromptu encounter with Humback whales.
Landed at Mary’s Harbour and again said Goodbye to the Australian couple we had bumped in to along the way. Patina and Dave – the latter confused the Americans and Canadians who queried us on the origins of the name ‘Dive’! At the Kitchen party last night Dave gave an amazing rendition (from memory) of the Poem Turbulence – and while the locals present did not understand it all, they very much enjoyed the humour of it.
Back on land, back on the bus. First a quick stop at the oldest mound burial in North America. A ‘Maritime Archaic’ adolescent who died approximately 7500 years ago. A story full of mystery and unanswered questions. Buried in an unusual manner with no other bodies found around him.
Onto Red Bay, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This site was a site for whaling by the Basque dating back to the 1500s.
We visited two museums one contained the remains of a Challoupe used by the whalers when hunting whale. The Challoupe was found underneath a whaling ship and thought to have been sunk to protect it while whaling ships returned to Europe with their harvest. The local people would take the nails from the boats if left on land.
The story of finding the remains of the whaling settlement and a Basque ship the San Juan caught our interest.
An intriguing story that lead to the finding of the ship through the efforts of Selma Barkham discovered the story through a Priest in the Basque region.
Selma learned Spanish to enable her to read records and began researching. Ultimately she found the whaling stations and with incredible accuracy found the wreck.
The Interpretive centre had guides in costume and our guide had Basque ancestry and extensive knowledge of the whaling industry. 16th-century Basque whalers caught thousands of whales each year for the oil.
I found the stories of shipwrecks where all oil was lost particularly poignant – all those whales died for no purpose at all.
Headed for L’Anse au Clair. A stop at a shop / factory on the way that made preserves from local berries including: Cloudberries, Lingonberries (called bake-apples and partridge berries in Newfoundland and Labrador). Not so fussed on these kind of stops. There were plenty of crackers and sample jams. It seemed like a selling place but given the limited number of people visiting you can’t blame them encouraging visits.
The standard process each afternoon-eve was: arrive at hotel and find room keys laid out at the desk. Scrabble for keys. Head for room. Bags later delivered to our room.
At the Northern Light Inn we headed for our room, flung open the door and there was Richard and Ann already esconced. Many jokes about room sharing etc. We opted to take their room and leave them – again many laughs about running up bills to their account.
Once sorted the Bar was next on the list. Here the bar had about 4 stools and a row of Pokie machines. Permission was given to quarantine a table in the dining room -which we did on both relatively rowdy nights of our stay.
